Joy in Birthing

How early should we start creating rituals for our baby?

First let me start by explaining what I mean by ‘rituals.’ Babies and children in general, are small people with very little power; the empowerment we can give them is knowledge. Knowing what to expect makes a baby feel calmer, and in charge of his/her time. Babies are creatures of habit; they like to have certain things every day at the same time. The repetition makes them feel secure and empowered. The earlier you create a series of rituals for them the calmer your baby will be and the easier your life together will be.

Rituals:

1. Provide a safe and secure environment for Baby’s development in all domains.
2. Develop Baby’s sense of identity, family traditions and memories, cultural heritage and values.
3. Give Baby a solid foundation which will assist her in adapting to and coping with change.

Daily routines may seem like chores to harried parents, but maintaining a relatively stress-free attitude can help Baby develop a cheery outlook. Through the simple interaction of daily care routines, Baby learns from you in many ways—through your language, touch, eye contact, tone of voice, pacing, and more. By having day and night time rituals, babies develop a sense of sequence of the day’s events.

Start by splitting your day into two 12 hour slots (say from 7 AM to 7 PM and vice versa) day time and night time, you’ll behave very different so that even the smallest baby can have a sense that there is a change of the quality of life in those two periods of time.

Daytime

• Create your own simple good morning ritual, it could be a song, a little water splash on the little face , a change in clothes from pjs to daytime clothes, anything to demark the change from night to day.
• Try to have a ‘daytime’ sleeping quarters that are different from the night time. For instance have a daytime bed, or put baby on the blanket on the floor (if you do not have animals in the house) or somewhere safe where he can be on his tummy (supervised) often during the day. (Read how important is tummy time.)
• In between feedings play with your baby, take her on a walk (even if it is just outside in your backyard,) put her in the sling and carry her around.
• Once a day (in the afternoon) place your baby for a ‘afternoon’ nap in the night time sleeping environment (even if you have her with you in bed in the night time) and take advantage and take a nap as well. This will establish the ‘nap time’ ritual which could stay with baby till 2 or 3 years old.

Bedtime Rituals

“Bedtime is a monumental moment to a baby or toddler, a time of transition in
which parents hold nearly shamanistic power to tame the forces of darkness.”
—The Heart of A Family, by Meg Cox,

We all know the feeling after a good night’s sleep. Sleep provides rest, boosts the immune system, helps concentration and memory and generally makes you feel and look better. The same is true for infants, although your baby’s new born needs will be different to yours. Adjusting to your baby’s sleep pattern will be one of your first challenges as a parent. No baby sleeps in exactly the same way as another, and a wide variety of sleep patterns fall within the bounds of normal, healthy infant behavior. Sleeping patterns can also change during phases of teething, illness and growth spurts.

Bedtime provides a time of connection for parent and child. Bedtimes rituals are great for the parent who has been at work all day and needs to bind with baby. Start by feeding baby from one breast only so he’s not hungry during this ritual. Tell him it is bed time as he feeds and tell him what is to come “daddy is going to give you a bath, we’ll put a pajama on read you a story because it is bed time.” Then give baby a bath, many parents ask me if they must give a bath every night, of course not, remember these are just suggestions and you are in charge of your own baby. I do not suggest you scrub and soap up your baby every night, I simply like to place babies in warm water before bed time because it reminds them of the womb (safe place in their memory) and warm water calms them down. Make sure the water is not too cold, not too hot, it should be pleasant to the touch, and make sure the room is warm as well. I used to give a bath to my baby in the kitchen sink as the over was on warming up our dinner. After the bath give your baby a little massage. You could have a professional teach you, or simply believe that you can give your baby a rub down with some unscented oil. I love to use grape seed oil as it is food grade and non allergic. Stay away from perfumed oils of any kind and read your labels (most commercial baby oils are made with what they call mineral oil which are petroleum derivatives.) As a good Italian mama I used olive oil on my babes. Put her PJs on and read her a story as you feed her again.

To recap:

• Feed on one breast
• It’s bed time – tell your baby what to expect
• Give her a bath
• A baby massage
• Put PJs
• Read her a story as you feed on the other breast
• Place her in her night time sleeping place – your bed, the co-sleeper etc.

From this moment on when she wakes up try not to play, or even talk too much. Change her, feed her and put her back down to sleep. If you sleep in the same bed and your bedroom is far from where you are going to be, still put her down in her close by but you might consider swaddling her this one time just to delineate the difference between day time and night time. Once you all go o sleep and at the next feeding unswaddle her.

The Importance of Sleep

In general, humans experience different stages and cycles of sleep during the night, oscillating between active and quiet sleep. REM (rapid eye movement) is the active sleep cycle and the phase where most of the dreaming occurs. During this cycle the brain is active and working, making this the easiest time to wake up or rouse your baby. NonREM (NREM) sleep, on the other hand, is the quiet sleep cycle. The deeper sleep experienced in this phase helps replenish energy and strengthen the body. An adult can fall asleep and easily fall into a deep, sound NREM sleep. After approximately ninety minutes of deep sleep, the cycle usually shifts to lighter REM sleep, in which the brain is more active. An adult will spend about six hours in quiet sleep, and two hours in active sleep a night. As we age, deep sleep lessens in proportion to active sleep.

Babies, on the other hand, fall into an active REM sleep cycle that lasts approximately twenty minutes. Signs that your baby is still in this active sleep stage include movements like muscle twitches, startling, and sucking. Some babies will easily arouse if they are put down too early during this phase. For those babies who awaken while being put to bed, try singing a lullaby, or rocking baby for a long enough period to allow him to enter the deeper sleep cycle. You will know she is in deeper sleep when the body is less active, his arms and legs are limp, and he is less easy to arouse. Newborns sleep as well as feed in two- to three-hour cycles. In the first few months, sleep cycles are shorter, which means there are more periods of light active REM sleep. Half of your baby’s sleep time is spent in REM sleep, compared to twenty percent of an adult’s cycle. Given this, it is not surprising that baby wakes up more often than mom from birth to six months: as often as two to three times a night, and then once a night until two years old.

In the first six months of life, your baby’s breathing will have an important impact on her sleep. In infancy, a baby’s breathing organs are still young and not fully developed, and it is not uncommon for her to have irregular breathing patterns during sleep. This is known as periodic breathing in which there can be several pauses in breathing lasting more than three seconds. They can occur up to three times in a row, and this may be considered normal. Your baby will usually sense that she is not getting sufficient oxygen and will wake up. Typically she will then begin breathing normally again. By six months old, your baby should be breathing at a regular rate and the periodic episodes will lessen. Periodic breathing is more common in premature infants. This breathing pattern is one of the reasons why many suggest baby should be in your room co-sleeping. Research has shown that when baby and mom sleep together mom is aware in her sleep of baby’s breathing pattern and she will gently reach and caress her baby encouraging him to breathe without even waking up. Co-sleeping does not only mean sleeping in the same bed, but includes having baby comfortably in his own co-sleeper at arm’s reach.

A word of Caution

If you are a type A personality (and you know who you are,) please understand that the times and sequence of the above mentioned rituals are not written in stone. These are simply suggestions; find your own ritual that works for your family. The point is to create a ritual, your ritual and not to follow one that someone else has put together.